The Hidden Face of Fear

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Neuroscientists and psychologists are approaching a common understanding of how the brain's fear circuitry works, and changes.

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, New York has become the center of an epidemic of fear and anxiety that has spread throughout the Western world. Just as these emotions can spread contagiously throughout a society, they likewise spread within and can gain control of our minds.

THE HIDDEN FACE OF FEAR analyzes how our brains, on both a conscious and unconscious level, mentally process and physiologically respond to fear and anxiety, especially through a region of the brain called the amygdala, describes the social mechanisms of learning fear, coping strategies for dealing with fear, and explains how disorders such as post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can be treated.

The film features interviews with some of the world's leading experts on fear and memory, including neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux, Nobel Prize-winning neurobiologist Eric R. Kandel, neuropsychiatrist David Silbersweig, and other psychologists and neuroscientists at New York University's Center for the Neuroscience of Fear and Anxiety.

Through profiles of several New Yorkers being treated for PTSD and panic disorder, THE HIDDEN FACE OF FEAR reveals the traumatic impact of 9/ll and how the brain's fear circuitry might be modified through the combined efforts of psychologists and neuroscientists.